On careful examination it will be found that the first symptom which denotes the commencement of the ordinary fever of this country, in its mildest form (synochus mitior), is a loss of mental energy. This is by no means the first symptom which attracts attention: it is commonly overlooked for some time, and excites little notice until it has become distressing. Patients in general are incapable of analyzing their sensations or of determining the order of their succession; but if medical men, who are but too subject to be attacked with this disease, will take the trouble to reflect on the order of events as they occurred to themselves, they will probably be satisfied, after the most attentive consideration, that the first indication of disease they felt was a want of power to conduct their ordinary mental operations with ease and vigour. Such at least, perhaps I may be permitted to mention, was the fact in my own case; for, having suffered a severe attack of fever, I have a distinct and vivid recollection of the dulness, confusion, and want of mental energy which I experienced for a considerable time before I was conscious of any corporeal debility. This affection of the mind consists particularly in indistinctness and consequent confusion in the trains of ideas; in inability to attend to their relations; and, as a necessary result, in the loss of power to think clearly. The individual feels that he is not in a state to form a sound judgment on any subject upon which he may be called to decide. Closely connected with this mental weakness is the loss of energy in the muscles of voluntary motion. Lassitude is the result. The patient cannot move with his usual vigour, nor even sit without the feeling of weariness. The debility thus seizing upon both body and mind, sometimes occurs in each so nearly simultaneously that, it must be owned, it is difficult to determine in which it appears first. The next symptom in the order of succession is still more characteristic: it consists in an uneasy sensation which is quite peculiar to this state of the system. No description can convey any idea of it to one who has not felt it; and to him who has felt it the word fever recalls this uneasy feeling so instantaneously and vividly that I apprehend most unprofessional persons conceive it is this very feeling that constitutes the essence of the disease. It is much more distressing than pain: the mere restlessness which accompanies and which forms so large a part of it, any one would gladly exchange for intense pain. In all diseases it is this which makes the sufferer on his midnight pillow exclaim, “oh! that it were morning!” and in the day, “would that it were night!” Though it is so frequent in its occurrence, and so peculiar in its nature, yet I am not aware that it has received any distinct name: it may be called, until a better is suggested, febrile uneasiness.